Monday, May 31, 2010

The man can pose. He can preen. He cannot, judging by his performance these last eighteen months, govern. His handling, which is to say his ostentatious mishandling of the BP oil spill, is only the latest evidence that he is wildly out of his depth.

It is not surprising then to find evidence accumulating that Obama's pick for the Supreme Court is incompetent as a lawyer. Power Line reports that, in her efforts at Harvard to discriminate against the military, Elena Kagan signed on to a brief that not even one member of the Supreme Court could agree with:

Kagan signed in the Solomon Amendment case argued that law schools didn't violate the Solomon Amendment because they treated the military the same as they did other employers. It was an argument confined to the statutory language of the amendment. The Supreme Court blew it off in the first few pages of its analysis.

At Volockh Conspiracy, Stewart Baker reviews the incompetence of another brief filed by her office (Hat tip: Instapundit).

What does all this say about Elena Kagan, woman of mystery and Solicitor General until two weeks ago? Nothing good, I fear. The brief is at best a hacked-together, please-no-one compromise. At worst it borders on the unprofessional.

What does it mean to have such a person on the Supreme Court? While undoubtedly a reliable vote for the left, she appears unable to form a coherent argument. Consequently, decisions that she writes are unlikely to have lasting influence. Since Pres. Obama is sure to nominate leftists to the Supreme Court, the best we can hope for is an incompetent and, therefore, ineffective leftist. Elena Kagan seems to fit the bill.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

You get the point: however great things are, people complain, people tell you all the faults.

It is the same with the US economy. No matter that free markets have produced societies of wealth unimaginable only a few decades ago, there are always things to complain about. We may have the best health care in the world but, they say, isn't it just awful that you actually have to pay for it. Free markers provide the world's highest standards of living but, they say, isn't it just awful that the growth rate occasionally fluctuates down (recession). They wonder: Why can't we have expansions without ever having to bother with recessions?

Obama's health and economic policies see America as a glass-half-empty not realizing how lucky we are to have a glass and especially to have one half-full.

Here is HBO's Bill Maher explaining how he thinks a "real" black would act as President:

"I thought when we elected a black president, we were going to get a black president. You know, this [BP oil spill] is where I want a real black president. I want him in a meeting with the BP CEOs, you know, where he lifts up his shirt where you can see the gun in his pants. That's -- (in black man voice) 'we've got a motherfu**ing problem here?' Shoot somebody in the foot."

Today's protests were at the top of Nob Hill across Mason street from the Fairmont Hotel where Pres. Obama and Sen. Ma'am Boxer's fundraiser was being held. The police divided the block into two sections, the right half for the Tea Partiers and the left half, naturally, for the leftists. This is the view of the left side: If one looks more closely at the left side, one can see the preprinted ANSWER coalition (communist) signs, mostly in Spanish:The right-hand side held the Tea Partiers:The round floating black object (seen both above and below) is a blimp labeled "FailedSenator.com," a website created by Carly Fiorina, a liberal Republican who hopes to challenge Sen. Boxer this Fall.Notice the sign above which reads "We the people or they the ruling class?" Both left and right seem to agree that Pres. Obama is the leader of the ruling class. The two sides disagree over who represents "the people." The (leftist) speaker in the video above explains that he thinks that Tea Partiers are the rich who got that way by denying the poor their due.

Here is an expressive sign from the Tea Party side:As another example of the upset leftists, here is a man with a bullhorn who, before being drowned out by another leftist with a bullhorn, shouts repeatedly "Tea Party fascism":

The video above shows the space between the left and right sides. This space, a DMZ if you will, was created and enforced by the SF Police.

It was evident that the left liked their "racist, sexist, anti-gay" chant as they kept repeating it. Here is how it sounded from the Tea Party side of the DMZ:

Some on the left did have coherent points to make. The woman below, for example, observes that our Afghanistan policy seems inadequate to the task:While hundreds showed up today from the anti-Obama left and anti-Obama right, there were four people who appeared in support of Obama:At least with four people, the pro-Obama supporters outnumbered the one protester whose concern was for extraterrestrial rights, shown here as he talks to one of SF's finest:Today's Tea Party was organized by the Bay Area Patriots.

Monday, May 24, 2010

The LA Times reports on the Supreme Court's latest affirmative action case:

Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking at the court Monday, said he and his colleagues were applying the civil-rights laws as written by Congress, not necessarily as he and others thought it should be written. . . . .

In Monday's opinion, Scalia acknowledged this law created "practical problems for employers" and could "produce puzzling results." He concluded, however, "it is a problem for Congress, not one that federal courts can fix."

According to the Pew Center, the less you like to fly the American flag, the more likely it is you are Democrat. The more you think hard work and personal initiative aren’t the ticket to the good life, the more likely you are to be a Democrat. The more you believe the United Nations is a better steward of international relations, while America is a negative actor on the world stage, the more likely you are to be a Democrat. The more you believe that the government is there to help, the more likely it is you are Democrat. The less seriously you take religion, the more likely you are to be a Democrat.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

The Houston Chronicle reports on surveys showing that nearly half of Texas physicians are refusing to take new Medicare patients and another 100 to 200 a year have gone the next step and are dropping their existing Medicare patients:

“This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode,” said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. “If Congress doesn't fix Medicare soon, there'll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress' promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken.”

More than 300 doctors have dropped the program in the last two years, including 50 in the first three months of 2010, according to data compiled by the Houston Chronicle. Texas Medical Association officials, who conducted the 2008 survey, said the numbers far exceeded their assumptions. [Emph. added]

What made Obama and his allies think that they could manage health care for all Americans when they knew full well that they could not find the funds to support Medicare by itself?

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Nick Rizzuto writes on the beginnings of Tea Party movements around the world:

In recent months, inspired by what they are observing here in the states, Tea Party organizations have begun to rise in up the furthest corners of the world. While these organizations might have different concerns, ones that are specific to their particular nations, it is clear that each has formed around the same concepts: limited governance and individual liberty.

Ironically it was England, who in the 18th century was at the unpleasant end of a Tea Party, which was the first outside of the US to hold a Tea Party rally, launching their national movement in February of this year. In addition, Tea Party organizations have popped up in Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, and Japan. Most recently, we have learned that Israel is planning on staging its first Tea Party in Tel-Aviv.

There is a tea party planned for Tel Aviv (more here) on Friday, July 16. Great Britain's tea party movement is discussed here, here, and here. The Dutch Tea Party is planning an event for Saturday, May 29. There is discussion of a possible German Tea Party movement here. Whether these represent genuine political movements, like the tea party in America, or are merely astroturf remains to be seen.

Despite repeatedly voicing concerns about Arizona's new immigration enforcement law in recent weeks and threatening to challenge it, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday he has not yet read the law, which is only 10 pages long. [Emph. added]

That is the (liberal) news cycle in action. Mr. Holder reads a story. He repeats what he read to a reporter. Because Holder is the Attorney General, what he says is considered authoritative and becomes the basis for a new news story (which may be read and repeated by another quotable official, becoming the basis for another new news story...). This is the "echo chamber" in action.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter," Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said. [Emph. added]

Here we have a president who does not know how to work an iPod and, yet, he somehow believes that he is qualified to determine its value. This is reminiscent of Pres. Obama's claim that he did not need to know "all the facts" before he declared that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly. As a man who went to law school, why doesn't he have a better appreciation of the importance of facts when making arguments?

Saturday, May 08, 2010

John Dennis and Dana Walsh face off in the Republican primary on June 8. The winner will run against Speaker Pelosi this fall. The LA Times reports that Dana Walsh has a very impressive donor list: 33,000 people from all 50 states. Here she is addressing the tax day Tea Party in San Francisco:

While Dana Walsh appears to be a mainstream conservative, her opponent, John Dennis, who is more of a Ron Paul-style libertarian, is hostile to the Federal Reserve and wants an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.

San Francisco is so lopsidedly liberal that Pelosi's aides, the LA Times reports, "can't even remember the last time Pelosi ran a TV or radio spot." The city has not elected a Republican to Congress since 1972.

In economics, there are some basic laws that are beyond dispute. One of them, for example, would be the law of supply and demand. How well do people understand these laws? Economic Journal Watch, a peer-reviewed journal, has published a study done by George Mason University in collaboration with Zogby that attempts to answer that question. They asked eight basic economic questions of 4,835 people. Their first interesting result was that college-graduates did not know more about basic economics than those with a high school education or less. The second interesting results was that economic knowledge depended strongly on political philosophy with self-identified liberals and progressives being much less knowledgeable than self-identified conservatives or libertarians. Table 2 from their paper shows these results (click on the table to enlarge):What happens if rents are artificially lowered? The law of supply and demand says that demand goes up and supply goes down. In other words, there will be a shortage. According to the table above, only 14 % of "very conservatives" or 16% of libertarians answered the rent control question incorrectly. However, an amazing 71% of liberals and 79% of progressives answered this question incorrectly. In none of the eight questions did the liberals/progressives do better than conservatives/libertarians.

If Democratic policies, such as Obamacare and cap-and-trade, seem economically irrational, it is likely, according to this study, a result of the proponents of those policies being economic illiterates. The left really does not understand or does not want to understand the law of supply and demand.

In my conversations with liberals, the root of the problem seems to be a refusal to consider more than one side. In the rent control issue, for example, a liberal's sympathy is with the renter and he will refuse to consider that landlords and people who might consider becoming landlords also have rights and options. Many liberals would seem to be intellectually capable of considering how all sides would respond to a policy if they wanted to but they don't because they don't want to.

With so many important national and statewide races this year, it is easy to overlook races with important but local consequences. In the very liberal County of San Mateo (San Francisco Peninsula), there are five candidates running in a non-partisan race to replace Rich Gordon as a County Supervisor. The San Mateo Daily Journal has an article on them with an online (non-scientific) poll. The notable result is that the leading candidate in this poll is the tea-party-endorsed candidate, Matt Grocott:

We won't find out if this non-scientific poll means anything until the election on June 8. However, Mr. Grocott is sane, sensible, and fiscally responsible. That makes him just the kind of Supervisor that the deficit-ridden county government needs right now.

Monday, May 03, 2010

While California's public universities are sometimes excellent, California's K-12 public education is a disaster, as Los Angeles' Wave newspaper reports:

California ranks next to last in states where the adult population has at least a high school education, according to a report released by the California Faculty Association at Cal State Los Angeles.

Ranking 49th out of 50 states is an indication of the state’s deteriorating educational status in recent decades, according to “California at the Edge of a Cliff,” by Thomas G. Mortenson.

Tonight, Lydia Gutierrez, a school teacher with twenty years experience, explained what's wrong with California education to a rapt audience at a meeting of MyLiberty in San Mateo. She gave a whirlwind tour of the complex maze of policies and bureaucracies that strangle our public education system. She is running to become California's school superintendent in the election on June 8. I hope she succeeds.

Sunday, May 02, 2010

It was a beautiful Saturday in San Francisco's Civic Center. On one side of Polk Street were about 40 Golden Gate Minutemen protesting in favor of immigration being safe and legal. Here is the scene from their side:"What has two hands and only nine digits? An illegal alien with my social security number."

The protester above is seen facing a police van with flashing lights that was called in as pro-illegal demonstrators surged from the other side of Polk street toward the Minutemen. Here you can see the May Day protesters carrying Che signs and waving a Mexican flag at the Minutemen:How dangerous was it? A man on the Minuteman side writes that the pro-illegals were preparing for violence:

They came as a mob almost up to our side of the street. I saw some bottles of water about to be thrown, and I saw some wrapping their heads with SEIU t-shirts to mask their faces in case someone broke rank and started to attack us. This of course would have allowed the entire mob to begin the violent attack.

They know enough to protect their anonymity when anticipating violence. They may not know how to fill out immigration papers but they do know how to riot.

The SF police pushed back, keeping the pro-illegals on the other side of Polk street:

In the foreground in the photo above are the pro-illegal protestors, behind them is a line of police, then Polk street, then police tape and barricades, then another line of policemen, then several parked cars, then more metal barricades, then the forty or so Minutemen protesters. The police were being careful. I would have gotten more photos of the Minutemen side but the police were not letting anyone near them.

Also, as shown above, the police had their backs to the Minutemen and faced the May Day crowd. Despite all the media reports about "right wing" violence, the police clearly knew which side was peaceful and which side was dangerous.

The success of the police in protecting the Minutemen caused frustration on the pro-illegal side and they responded with extreme crudity, as my Minuteman correspondent writes:

They responded with the bird and a gesture that looked like masturbation followed by tossing the result my way. Must be some Central American gesture as I've never seen it before.

Just how well prepared San Francisco police were can be seen in this photo looking from Civic Center, across Grove Street, toward the Bill Graham Auditorium and showing a very long line of police cars and police motorcycles waiting to swing into action:(Despite the preparations, three Minutemen were attacked but more on that below.)

The May Day protesters, numbering a thousand or more, gathered around a stage in Civic Center:If the speakers at the May Day rally were speaking English, I would try to summarize what they said, but they weren't. There were, however, colorful displays of flags, some Mexican, some Honduran, among others:It must have been frustrating for the May Day crowd not to have Geo. Bush to kick around anymore. Instead, they were reduced to calling Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer a Nazi and racist:The sign reads "I talked to your kids about racisim[sic.] last night. I told them that treating another group of people unfairly was wrong. They agreed. Signed, tu[sic.] nanny." The sign, of course, is also adorned with Nazi symbols and a "Heil Hitler." (Will Speaker Pelosi ever acknowledge that protesters on her side "carry swastikas"?)

The man shown below wanted Obama to "open the stables for the horses." I decided not to ask for a translation:May Day rallies are not only about immigration. They are also about communism. While some of us may think that the USSR was a failed experiment, those belonging to the International Bolshevik Tendency still think fondly of the glory days in 1917:My Minuteman correspondent writes about the media hypocrisy:

I also saw all the communist literature being sold in the Plaza. No media reports on this commie stuff, but would the media have reported if our side were selling Mein Kampf?

The man below was at the May Day rally to promote the "All African People's Revolutionary Party" with "a call to strengthen the solidarity between African people and the indigenous people of the Western hemisphere":San Francisco is famous for colorful characters and they were also there for this event:There were also lots of t-shirts and buttons for sale. Marijuana legalization advocates have a new slogan as seen on the button below: "legalize today, get high tonight":At the end of the demonstration, I watched as the police escorted the Minutemen out of the area. Apparently the escort did not last long enough. ABC News reports that a large group of illegal-rights supporters followed them to the BART station (San Francisco's subway) and punched and kicked them. Three Minutemen supporters were injured. At least two of the attackers were arrested and will "likely be charged with felony assault and robbery."

UPDATE 2: One of the participants on the Minuteman side offers a few comments. For one, he describes his encounter with an AP reporter eager to make the Minutemen look bad:

Of course, there were no racist signs on our side, but when I met an AP photographer, I said, "Are you looking for a racist sign?" He excitedly looked around and said, "Where?" I pointed out to him that there were no racist signs, that racism was the farthest thing from our minds, and that his excitement about a possible racist sign was evidence that he WANTED there to be a racist sign. I told him my question was about him, not the sign. Obviously the possibility of a racist sign fit into his narrative, the one in which he got to be the hero in exposing what he was sure that was at the core of our ideology. The media are so transparent right now in their clear leftist slant.

UPDATE 3: Steve Kemp of the Golden Gate Minutemen has issued a statement:

I am very proud of all who showed up and stood with us, and also to those who wanted to, but truly couldn't. ....

Yes there was danger, but we had about 15 SFPD Officers assigned to protect us. I've been to many protests during my four years with the Minutemen, and as we expected, this was absolutely the worst one I've witnessed. The arrogance, vile hatred and racism that these "peaceful immigrants" displayed was disgusting - absolutely disgusting.

They walked OUR streets that WE pay for, that our parents and grandparents paid for (some with the ultimate sacrifice), openly admitting that they are here illegally, carrying mass murderer Che Guevara posters with pride, communist flags, socialist tables set up at the Civic Center Plaza, and Mexican flags waving on a beautiful spring day in a city that we all used to love called San Francisco. They spit at us, threw things and flipped us off. All while calling us "hate mongers", "racists" and "Nazis". And having the nerve to whine about "racial profiling" and how unfair America is to them. ....

This has been going on for some time now, and I got news for anyone that will listen. The "New Patriot Movement" had better get off of their butts and take a stand before we're totally overrun by people who think it's their right to take back "their" country.